Dancing on Ice professional, Vanessa Bauer, revealed that she and partner Joey Essex have formed a close bond over the pair of them losing their parents.
The professional ice skater, 26, lost her father Marco to throat cancer last year, following his six-year battle with the disease. Reality star Joey, 32, lost his mum Tina to suicide when he was 10 years old.
While being interviewed on the red carpet at The Sun Who Cares Wins awards ceremony, Vanessa said: “Joey and I have talked about it. It’s hard to lose a parent at a young age, but we're still here and we’re shining. My dad was always so proud of my work and I know he’s still watching me somewhere, somehow.”
Joey added that he found the event an “emotional rollercoaster”, telling The Sun: “One thing that has stuck with me tonight is to live every day as if it’s your last because you never know what’s coming. You never know what’s around the corner but it’s so inspiring to see all these incredible stories.”
It was reported that the pair were cosied up together while at the event, and had recently been the centre of dating rumours due to them putting on a close display together on social media.
However, Vanessa previously shut down the rumours, saying that the pair are “just skating partners” who are “having a lot of fun” together, and that a romance wasn’t on the cards.
But sources have revealed that both Joey and Vanessa are said to have been flirting with each other throughout their training for the celebrity ice skating challenge.
The latter revealed that she had been worried that Joey would not take the challenge seriously, but had been proved wrong.
She said: "Dancing on Ice couldn't go any better right now, Joey is progressing really fast and he's working hard. He takes Dancing on Ice extremely seriously; I was a bit worried at the beginning that he was going to joke around too much. But we are having a lot of fun and at the same time we are training so hard.”
Joey was recently pictured kissing Love Island star Maura Higgins at the Pride Of Britain Awards last month, however Maura dismissed dating rumours as “more rubbish”.
